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Papua New Guinea says it will seek the help of the Australian Government and the United Nations in deciding whether to resettle refugees within the country.

Under Australia's asylum seeker policy, anyone arriving in Australian waters by boat will be sent to PNG for offshore processing.

There are currently 1,300 detainees on Manus Island. PNG's Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato says officials have started processing refugee applications.

But the country does not have a visa category for refugees and there's been little public information about how, and where, they might be resettled.

Mr Pato has told parliament the option of resettling refugees in a third country will also be explored.

"So what the cabinet has decided recently is to appoint a group of eminent Papua New Guineans who will be assisted by relevant expertise from the UN, from the Australian Government, and other responsible stakeholders, to come up with relevant policy framework determining the question whether those asylum seekers will or will not be settled in PNG," he said.

The Manus Island detention centre was first set up by the Australian Coalition government of then-prime minister John Howard in 2001.

It was closed by the Labor government in 2008, but re-opened by Labor in November 2012.

ABC News

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